Dier 2.0: Ange must immediately drop 3/10 Spurs ace after Ipswich

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Tottenham are a puzzling club. That's what the opening few months of the season have told us.

While they have enjoyed incredible victories over the likes of Manchester City and Aston Villa in the last fortnight, Spurs have also endured anguish.

They have lost to Crystal Palace - a win that was Oliver Glasner's first of the campaign. They have now also lost to Ipswich Town. Was that their first three points of the term too? Of course, it was.

This, though, was perhaps the worst of the lot, even worse than Palace and even worse than Galatasaray in midweek.

Why? Well, it was at home. Ange Postecoglou's side have been excellent in front of their home support so far. Had they beaten Kieran McKenna's side over the weekend, they would have sat second in the Premier League home table this term.

Alas, they will be made to lick their wounds over an international break and reset. If they want to secure a top-four berth then improvement, specifically at the back, is of utmost importance.

Tottenham's worst performers against Ipswich

This was not a good day at all for Postecoglou's men. This was a certain three points on paper. Spurs were excellent at home and the newly-promoted side had not tasted a league victory since being promoted back to the big time.

To see the Londoners roll over during a dire first half, therefore, was incredibly surprising. Or was it? This is Spurs, after all.

With goals from Sammie Szmodics and Liam Delap, a few players were at fault, notably Radu Dragusin but Pedro Porro did not cover himself in glory either.

The full-back did register an assist for Rodrigo Bentancur's second-half consolation goal but he was way too lapse for both of the strikes that Ipswich scored.

For the first, he and Brennan Johnson left Szmodics all alone and then for the second, the Spaniard didn't get close enough to Szmodics again whose ball to the byline was then squared to the in-form Delap.

Dominic Solanke did half the ball in the back of the net at one stage but it was ruled out on an afternoon where nothing seemed to go right for Tottenham.

A large reason for that was because of the aforementioned Dragusin who should find himself dropped after the international break.

Dragusin's performance in numbers vs Ipswich

The Romanian defender has had to bide his time for regular match action since signing from Genoa.

Although Spurs have their problems at the back, the partnership of Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven has been excellent since they were first paired together over a year ago.

The Dutchman has electric pace, immense bravery and isn't bad at defending either. Unfortunately, his colleague in Dragusin isn't quite up to the same level.

In consecutive games, the central defender has made individual errors that have led to the opposition scoring.

Against Galatasaray in the Europa League, he turned into trouble and as a result the Turkish side were allowed to score an easy goal.

His error on Sunday wasn't great either. He failed to clear the ball for Delap's winner, instead somehow putting it directly into the path of the former Manchester City youth product who wasn't going to miss the chance presented.

Handed a dismal 3/10 match rating by Football.London's Alasdair Gold, the reporter wrote of how it was a 'shaky display overall' that was littered with errors. As Spurs reporter Harry Scarfe more aggressively noted, it was an "awful" afternoon for the defender.

What did the numbers say? Well, they weren't too bad truth be told. He completed 87% of his passes and won six of his ten duels.

That said, when you make errors like he did this weekend, it doesn't matter what your numbers are saying. Let former Spurs man Eric Dier tell you that, a "slapdash and error-prone" defender himself during his days in London, something the Athletic's Tim Spiers once wrote.

Van de Ven will hopefully be back after the international break but even if he is not, perhaps it's worth giving Ben Davies a go at left centre-back instead. It can't get any worse, surely?